


To Nonsense

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Barricade Day, Coup de foudre, Don't copy to another site, Grantaire pov, I wrote this in February for Barricade Day, LITERALLY, M/M, Misunderstandings, Oblivious Grantaire, canon vibe compliant, cops are tools of the state, grantaire is a dumbass, pissing on Reagan's Grave, so naturally it's going up in August, starts soft and takes a sudden left turn into NOPE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25649077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Enjolras is in love, and like.  It's not like it matters to Grantaire, but he's intrigued.Warnings:canon character death, alcohol consumption, drug mention as a symbol (not graphic, brief)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75





	To Nonsense

**Author's Note:**

> Like I said in the tags, I've been sitting on this one for a while. Festive (belated) Barricade Day!
> 
> Thanks as always to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for beta-reading. <3

“Isn’t it obvious? Marius is in love.”

This is not remotely the answer Grantaire had expected from Enjolras when he’d asked about the state of their Passionate Pontmercy—stoic Enjolras, dedicated Enjolras, Enjolras-who-knows-nothing-about-romance Enjolras. Glancing toward the noodle in question, he takes another swig of his beer. “Well yeah, but like, with who?” 

“Whom.”

“Hugh?”

“‘With whom,’” Enjolras repeats. “It’s—well.” His eyes turn back to the booby. “He doesn’t know. Love at first sight. Struck, it seems.” 

Carbonation bubbles painfully in Grantaire’s nose. “You can’t honestly believe in that shit?”

The blond shrugs. “Yet another on a long list of things you don’t, I suppose?”

“Hey, I have a soft spot for romance,” he counters. “But yes, not remotely. There’s no logic in it at all. How could someone fall in love with a perfect stranger after barely making eye-contact? It’s lust at best”

The other man is still watching Marius babble when he answers. “Some things in this world don’t make sense.”

True enough, Grantaire can count ten in this room alone: Marius’s baffling intensity over a woman he’s apparently known for as long as it took for her to walk past him, the other eight’s presence despite being sensible citizens of the world, and his own confounding obsession with someone so absolutely opposite to him— 

And that is what Enjolras is to him: Grantaire’s chief defining quality is his lack of belief, and Enjolras’s most enchanting in spades is his, full and unwavering and utterly hypnotizing.

“To nonsense,” he toasts, raising his beer. 

Enjolras ignores him, which is probably for the best.

—

Who is Enjolras in love with? 

Love isn’t inherently understood: Enjolras either knows love firsthand—of the romantic sort, there is no way he mistook any of Marius’s bullshit as familial—or from a close secondary source, and the sincerity in Enjolras’s words…

_Isn’t it obvious?_

Firsthand account seems much more likely. 

It wouldn’t matter, not really. Enjolras is chaste, honest, healthy. _Blond,_ which is just right out. Unforgivable, honestly. Great to look at, terrible fuck, Grantaire is sure. 

That’s all there would be to it, anyway. It’s not like there’s anything more to Grantaire’s biweekly presence at their meetings, after all: Enjolras is nice to look at, nicer yet to hear. Belief might not be Grantaire’s jam anymore, but being around believers? Pure heroin, and Enjolras is the fentanyl of this brand of opioid.

It’d just be cool to have an idea of what fentanyl pairs with. For science.

—

Fentanyl pairs with Marius.

It’s no one at his university, it’s no one who’s been at meetings recently, and aside from the dirty looks (not the fun kind) Grantaire received when he showed up unannounced at Enjolras’s various lectures, he has observed Literally Nothing different from the usual. No fawning, casual flirtations, or general canoodling of any sort. Marius hasn’t shown up since the fateful meeting that featured his Chestnut Beauty™: it’s the only variable up for debate.

Enjolras has definitely been pining, too. There are no telltale hearts and initials in his notebook (which is tragic because that would make for a phenomenal lockscreen), but he sighs at all the right moments and stares off in the distance with enough wist to make Grantaire’s heart hurt and is overall clearly Not Coping.

Grantaire had always assumed that the perfect being would be untouchable—wake before the sun, a diet of nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables, untouched by mortal weaknesses such as attractions. The reality is somehow more crushing: the real perfect being has a crippling caffeine addiction and is physically incapable of waking before 10 and is very definitely hopelessly in love with someone, 

and that someone is Marius Pontmercy.

—

Okay, but Marius Pontmercy?

For starters, the kid worships Reagan. Like, could there be a more devastating blow for a man who is defined by the inherent belief that people matter?

There isn’t. He and Bahorel decided while pissing on his grave. It was a bonding exercise, and they bonded to fuck and back.

Enjolras might have pissed on Reagan’s grave before, with Courfeyrac or Combeferre or Feuilly. Really, anyone who isn’t Grantaire or, probably, Marius. Piss is holy, Grantaire has decided. Love and piss: the two purest emotions. And is love even that pure? Like, love can be felt in so many ways, with so many different walks of life.

Like Marius Pontmercy.

And Enjolras.

What a fucking match.

No, companionship found through piss and graves and bathroom oracles: these are the real bonds.

(Liquor seems like a strong bond-builder, too; Enjolras doesn’t drink, though, so love and piss are all he has at his disposal, and Grantaire isn’t even sure the man pisses.)

—

Enjolras’s love isn’t requited either, which is even dumber.

He could pick any of tens, hundreds, probably thousands of people. Even heteros, Enjolras could probably point to one and he’d be like, “Sure, why not?”

Meanwhile, Marius is off chasing some actual child, totally unable to think about more than one concept at a time and entirely wrapped up in a veritable kid for the time being.

Enjolras’s heart would be to blame on this one if it wasn’t his brain doing all the heavy lifting. Dick’s probably 25/75, but if his dick has ever given preference before it would seem it’s like to be Highly Selective—which, Gods bless, is not a problem Grantaire has ever had. 

Blue-eyed curly-haired blonds, the prettier the better, slight naïveté strongly preferred. 

No problems here.

—

They’re at the barricade, and Marius is cradling someone, someone who has _died,_ and Grantaire can’t even think.

For one thing, someone is _dead._ Someone he knew, someone he used to see on corners and in alleyways and along the river, and she’s _dead._

She has a brother, or maybe several, and a sister, and shitty parents, and now it’s all past-tense and the world doesn’t make sense, and Marius is crying but Enjolras isn’t. Enjolras’s face is stony and reverent, like he’s just realized with the death of Marius’s love (or maybe someone else who loved Marius—maybe he sees himself in her, the fool) that people are going to Die here.

—

The world is off-kilter and fucked and _hurts,_ it hurts _so badly._

It’s a hangover turned up to eleven, and it’s at once loud and quiet, and things are blurry and stark and dark and bright all at the same time, and Grantaire’s stomach could give a fucking tilt-a-whirl a run for its money, 

but that’s not what matters right now, because now, of all fucking times, is when belief has gripped him by the throat, by the very spinal cord, and is dragging him out from his cold dark spot alone behind the counter. 

Grantaire has had friends die before. Friends, family, lovers, and everything in between. They’ve died in front of him and in his absence and with his pained blessing and without any sort of notice in equal numbers, and his heart has threatened to strangle him every time, so he knows that isn’t what this is.

No, this is the most marrow-deep understanding that he must stand by this renegade fortress. This is his final opportunity, the last judgment: there are no more chances after this. This is the crossroads: he either believes or he doesn’t.

He hopes to a god he has never known that he does.

If he’s been abandoned among the dead, his options are scarce: die, or raise the dead in spirit and carry on the heart of the revolution. To die after his friends would be the coward’s way out, so he’d be forced to preserve that fatal heart, and he’d do it, but it’s such a heavy burden to bear alone, and— 

There they are. A ten-person militia against one man, just as he’d always understood the city’s Finest to prefer. His voice almost breaks over his desperate plea:

“Long live the republic: I am one of them!”

Enjolras stands on the other side of them. He looks surprised to see Grantaire, almost as surprised as Grantaire is to be there. Will he mock Grantaire? Rub the last-second declaration in his face, dangle it at eye-level in his final moments?

Will he denounce Grantaire and refuse him this death?

His eyes at last turn to the final judge—the true final judge, the only one that matters. Whether he is found lacking or worthy all balances on a knife’s edge, and

 _Oh._ Enjolras is in love.

“Take my hand.”

Grantaire can’t swallow. He can’t remember when the last time he had a drink of water was, but he’s pretty sure it doesn’t matter when his hand is in Enjolras’s and they’re both facing an armed police militia and

 _Oh._ Grantaire is in love.

He grips Enjolras’s hand a little tighter in his, and his feet grow roots. This, right here, this is where he belongs. Someone, perhaps long ago, perhaps in sync with Grantaire’s understanding, decided that he was destined to stand here and for the first time in a long time live here and also to die here,

and that is okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Gentle reminder that Marius and Cosette were 23 and almost 17 respectively when they got married, and their courtship before that went on around two years.
> 
> I love hearing from y'all! Please, if you feel so inclined, comment below or reach out at my [tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com)!


End file.
